This invention relates to a special shipping case for reducing damage of carton contents e.g. upon opening the case for price marking and stacking of the cartons on a store shelf, for example, as well as for increasing the strength of the shippers. The special case in accordance with this invention does not require additional material, additional assembly steps, or additional or modified filling and assembly equipment. Considerable problems have been encountered in connection with inadvertent cutting of ready-to-eat cereal cartons, and the like, by store clerks when shipping cases are opened for price marking of the contents. Typically the clerk will run the knife blade along two ends and a side of a case immediately below the top of the case in order to pivot the top open, and in some instances, the top of the case is removed entirely. Knives having a short blade of preset length are customarily used for this. A long standing problem has been the fact that cartons adjacent an outer wall of the case are likely to be cut. In recent investigation of this problem, it has been observed in laboratory tests that from 15 to 40 percent of the vulnerable cartons, that is, cartons immediately adjacent the outside of the shipping case, were cut or damaged by the store clerk's knife during removal of the shipping case top in the preparation for price marking of the contents. Although the packages in the shipping case which are adjacent the side panels are most likely to be damaged by clerk-cuts, a substantial number of packages adjacent the end walls, particularly those positioned at a flap-gap are damaged by clerk-cuts.
This problem has been found to have become particularly aggravated during the present trend towards higher density cereal products. While I do not intend to be bound by any theories of operation in connection with this invention, it is my belief based on repeated observation that in many instances a small gap is provided by the manufacturer between the top of a shipping case and the top of the content cartons. If the store clerk were to draw the opening knife along the outside of the shipping case in that top portion thereof which corresponds to the small gap between the top of the contents and the top of the shipping case, it is apparent that no substantial damage would occur to the contents of the case. However, it has been learned that upon stacking of cases on pallets, and upon stacking of loaded pallets on top of one another for storage, the weight forces involved generally result in the collapse of the small gap between the top of the content cartons and the top of the shipping case. This is particularly exaggerated in those instances involving a relatively high density product such as, for example, a high density natural ready-to-eat cereal as distinguished from a low density puffed ready-to-eat cereal. When the clerk draws the knife along the outside of the shipping case, regardless of how close to the top of the case the blade stays, the knife will probably, and in fact does damage a large percentage of the contents, using heretofore available shipping cases. Another common form of damage is that which results from partial crushing of the contents due to partial crushing of the shipping case assembly, for example, during storage, an illustrated embodiment of this invention gave substantially higher top to bottom compression test results, when in the storage position.